Cohesity on World Backup Day

By: Matt Waxman, VP of Product Management at Cohesity

As we reflect on the past year, the world has been turned upside down, so talking about RPOs and RTOs just doesn’t seem appropriate. We are living in an age where ransomware has almost become a household term. Sophisticated ransomware attacks are increasingly targeting backup data in addition to what resides in production, to knee-cap organizations and their last lines of defense. Tackling ransomware is multi-faceted, but without a doubt having a comprehensive data protection strategy with a foundation built around immutability is no longer a nice to have, but a must-have.

Previously immutability was set on the storage medium, but now available at a file system level, it is far more potent and cloud-friendly. While many backup vendors now claim to feature a level of immutability, it can take many forms. In essence, immutability is where your data is fixed, unchangeable and unable to be deleted. Once you have saved an immutable backup it cannot be altered or written to; this is particularly important for countering malware or ransomware. An immutable backup is largely impervious to new ransomware infections, but an archive of immutable backups gives even more assurances of a successful recovery, be that a full backup or snapshots. With Cohesity, our file system, SpanFS, is immutable, meaning backups are written in an immutable state, and thus dramatically reducing the chances that you will be in a position where paying a ransom is the only way you can recover data after an attack.

All companies, big and small, need to be on their guard and put defenses in place to reduce the chances of becoming the next victim. When combined with the cloud, an immutable file system is an incredibly powerful way of overcoming ransomware attacks. For too long backup has been a chore, or worse, an afterthought. However, in 2021, it is clear that sticking with your existing backup vendor’s protection without thoroughly assessing its immutability credentials is akin to doing nothing, which can no longer be an option.